MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- In a reversal of its decision last month, the Senate Education Committee today moved forward a bill to repeal Alabama's Common Core State Standards for public schools.

If approved, the bill would overturn the Alabama State Board of Education's voluntary adoption of the national standards for math and English.

Adopted in 2010, the new math standards took effect this school year and the new English standards are set to take effect at the start of the 2013-14 school year.

Republican leadership said the bill will likely be scheduled for a vote before the full Senate this session.

Following the committee decision, Chairman Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road, said Alabama schools are implementing national education standards that have not been properly vetted, sacrificing too much authority to outside entities.

The committee rejected a virtually identical bill sponsored by Brewbaker last month with too few Republican supporters in attendance to garner a favorable vote.

The new proposal, sponsored by Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, appears to have support from key Republican leaders in the Senate.

Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh, R-Anniston, who was not present for the previous committee vote, moved for the bill's approval less than 10 seconds into Beason's opening remarks.

"I think you'll see it get to the floor, and I think it has a very good chance of passing," Marsh said after the committee vote.

Beason, who is not a member of the education committee, said he is sponsoring the repeal bill because the new standards could end up "indoctrinating" students with the political beliefs and worldviews of those who created them as well as stymie U.S. innovation in education.

"The whole push to centralize, I think, leads to the possibility of everyone going into the ditch at the same time," he said.

Democratic lawmakers urged Republican supporters to halt the repeal attempt, arguing it would hurt public education in Alabama.

"The people who are against Common Core are against public education, and we have a strong movement of anti-public education going on," said Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma.

Developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Common Core standards tell educators what concepts and lessons students should grasp at each grade level for English and math.

State education officials say they do not tell teachers what curriculum to use or how to teach those lessons.

Adopted by 45 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories, the standards are intended to bring more rigor to American classrooms in response to a 2004 study by the American Diploma Project that showed 28 percent of high school graduates nationwide aren't prepared for college math or English.

Republicans and conservative groups have denounced the standards as a federal intrusion into state-run education since the Obama administration announced in 2009 that states seeking federal Race to the Top grants would be scored, in part, on whether they adopted the Common Core standards.

In a resolution this month, the Republican National Committee called the Common Core "an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived 'normal.'"

"The minute they started tying Race to the Top grants to compliance with Common Core, the voluntary part was over," Brewbaker said today.

According to Brewbaker, who is spearheading the movement to repeal the standards, the state school board rushed to adopt the Common Core in 2010 -- over the objection of then incoming Gov. Robert Bentley -- so it could apply for a Race to the Top grant.

Despite its adoption of the Common Core standards, Alabama failed to obtain one of the federal grants, which were designed to encourage states to adopt certain educational policies favored by the U.S. Department of Education.

Alabama educators and business groups are urging Senate Republicans to halt the repeal efforts.

"To be honest, I was heartbroken when I heard the news," Alabama Teacher of the Year Suzanne Culbreth said of the vote. "I am very, very disappointed that something that is best for our students and teachers is being so politicized."

Culbreth, who uses the standards as a geometry teacher at Spain Park High School in Hoover, said they are more rigorous than the state's old standards and better aligned to ensure each lesson builds toward the next.

"I have not in any way seen anything that indoctrinates our students with anything other than good solid number sense and mathematical knowledge," she said.

During the committee meeting, Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, unsuccessfully pushed for an amendment that would implement restrictions on the state education board without actually repealing the Common Core standards.

Without the Common Core repeal, the bill would still bar the Alabama State Board of Education from ceding control over its education standards to any outside entity, implement additional privacy protections for students and teachers, and require public hearings in each of the state's congressional districts before the state school board changes statewide standards in the future.

Holtzclaw said he plans to reintroduce the amendment when the bill reaches the Senate floor.

"(Teachers) believe it's the right thing and so do parents and so does business and industry," he said. "That's why it's important to me."

The chambers of commerce from Huntsville, Birmingham, Mobile and Montgomery asked the Legislature not to repeal the Common Core standards in an open letter last month, cautioning that the effort "could seriously damage the state's 'business friendly' status."

Despite the controversy, the state board recently moved ahead with the implementation of the Common Core standards last week, adopting new, standardized assessments aligned with the Common Core.

Those assessments, from ACT Inc., are still being pilot tested by more than 400 schools across the eight states, including more than 240 schools in Alabama.

Brewbaker said the state should wait to implement the assessments until they are proven effective.

"We are the first state to have all of our assessments aligned with the Common Core," he said. "We are the poster children of Common Core compliance, but nobody has vetted these assessments."

State Superintendent Thomas Bice, who did not address the committee today, told the Legislature at the start of the session that the board did not adopt the Common Core standards "sight unseen."

Instead, it adopted them after an extensive course-of-study review that lasted more than a year, he said.

"I have complete confidence that Alabama remains in total authority over our academic standards under the watchful eye of the Alabama Board of Education," Bice said.

Bice denied claims by some state lawmakers and local conservative groups that the new standards require the state share personal information on students and their parents with the federal government.